


bluebird

by deuteroscopies



Series: the prophet and the king [23]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Anal Sex, Body Modification, Claiming, Cruelty, Daddy Kink, Dark Fantasy, Dirty Talk, Dominance, Healing, Jealousy, M/M, Mortality, Near Death Experiences, Punishment, Rough Sex, Soul Bond, Submission, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:46:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21857059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deuteroscopies/pseuds/deuteroscopies
Summary: Ephram's dying slowly over the course of a week, his body without its healing magic breaking down under the strain of housing the demon Anaxis. Freddie, with the focal Bvlgari Blue diamond taken out of him, works with Iann Cardero to implant a replacement into himself: the seed of a magical sugarplum. Eating the flesh has supercharged his fairy magic, and the sugarplum seed planted deep in his belly ensures that the surge will give him all the magic he needs to save his husband. They remake, and reconnect, and have life-affirming sex, of course.(At this point they are involved with a human woman, Ruby [Kate Beckinsale FC])
Relationships: Freddie Watts/Ephram Pettaline
Series: the prophet and the king [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551673





	bluebird

**Author's Note:**

> > Freddie Watts = Tom Hardy FC, Ephram Pettaline = Boyd Holbrook FC. These stories are set in the supernatural town of Soapberry Springs, in the Pacific Northwest. Freddie is a fairy con man from London, with cobalt-coloured dragonfly wings and silver fairy dust, who has a Japanese Chin familiar named Oliver; Ephram is a witch from impoverished East Kentucky who shares his body with a demon called Anaxis and has green magic of his own.
>> 
>> [the prophet and the king 'verse tumblr](http://theprophetandtheking.tumblr.com/)   


Ephram was dying.  
  
But there was always hope.

Ruby held that belief firmly in her mind - above the fear, and the anger, the helplessness, and the sorrow that threatened to drag her down - and continued on. She shook him gently awake, looking into his glazed over eyes, willing it to be him and not the demon looking back at her as they opened. “You need to drink, baby. Can you do that? Please?”  
  
Ephram had heard Ruby’s first entreaty, but he hadn’t been able to respond. He hadn’t, in fact, been able to tell whether her voice was real or not; he’d started to hear all sorts of people talking to him in the new endless dark of his blindness. Even familiar and beloved voices scared him.  
  
That was one of the worst things. Sure, there was the sweating and shaking and bleeding and pissing and coughing, but those were amplified by the all-consuming fear. Considering how he’d grown up, and prison being the crucible that took him from teenager to adult, Ephram had learned to quell his fears mercilessly while remaining hypervigilant. It was a characteristic that served him very well as a lawman but not much else.  
  
Now it was as if all that banked fear of a lifetime had returned, tsunami-sized, and Ephram was sinking fast.  
  
The second time, he decided it really was Ruby and tried to acknowledge her. A lopsided, weak caw was all the noise that came out of him on first try, followed by an aggrieved whine at the pain that most movements inevitably caused and his lack of ability to communicate with ease. He reached for Ruby, wet fingers sprawling and clenching until he touched the glass she guided against his hands.  
  
Ephram let her hold it and raised up enough to slowly, slowly let the water trickle into his mouth and down his ruined throat. His body rebelled and he spluttered up some of the water, but doggedly tried again and managed to keep some down this time. “There we are,” Ruby said gently, letting him drink at his own pace as he slowly responded. She knew it was difficult, and more often than not, the water came back up in a horrific, choking sputter of red, frothy saliva, or riding a wave of nausea. Ruby’s shirt was speckled with it.  
  
She supported his head with her other hand as he raised up, feeling the sticky, filthy wetness of where his hair had matted against the pillow; sweat and blood and the remnants of vomit that Ruby simply couldn’t get out without hurting him. She hardly noticed it though, more concerned as he started to choke. Ruby waited, patient as ever, until he was ready to try again.  
  
He tried to lick his lips but couldn’t get the delicate chapped tissue apart. Frustrated, Ephram forced a rattling sigh that unglued his mouth and accepted the water that his wife immediately offered. He clumsily touched his fingertips against hers on the mattress. A gust of marine breeze swept in, scouring out some of the sour smell in the room, and Ephram turned his face towards it.

“I wanted to grow sunflowers,” he said to himself, voice creaking. “I wanted to have a peacock.”  
  
When he started talking to himself and not her - she had come to notice the difference - Ruby closed her own eyes. She turned her own head towards the breeze, sharing it with him as she held his hand. Something small and good.  
  
Fat teardrops shuddered down her cheeks. When she spoke, her voice trembled, despite her best efforts against it. “You’re gonna have those things, baby. Sunflowers far as the eye can see. Big an’ gold and smellin’ so sweet. We’ll plant ‘em, an’ watch ‘em grow, and then… then you can chase me through the rows. An’ when you catch me, we’ll laugh ourselves breathless and fall down to the grass right there. Make love like we was teenagers again. Like it shoulda been.”  
  
Ruby could see it in her mind’s eye, and it was a sweet dream.  
  
“We’re gonna get you regular peacocks, and a white one too. Maybe a black one, if they come in that color. An’ when their feathers fall out, I’ll braid the tips into your hair one night.” She turned back, brushing the sticky, dirty locks from his face. “It’ll be so long by then…”  
  
“There’s one called the patent peacock what’s black,” Ephram mumbled. His nose started to leak bright blood in a steady trickle, staining a trail of rust through dark golden facial hair as he spoke. “You gotta bargain with an atronach clan to git one though–”  
  
Ephram stopped talking, which wasn’t unusual; but his whole body went rigid and frozen, his glazed-over eyes going wide, wide, their widest. Then they shut with almost an audible snap and Ephram grimaced, teeth clenched but soundless.  
  
The sound that came wasn’t terribly loud or dramatic, but it was steady, constant. Like rice krispies in milk, or pop rocks, except it was coming from the long bones in Ephram’s arms and legs as cracks spiderwebbed across them. Ruby couldn’t see them, couldn’t know what was happening, and Ephram’s body offered her an insight as the thin, already bruised skin over his clenched knuckles and over the knobs in his wrists peeled back to show bone decorated with livid fracture marks.  
  
This carried on for twelve minutes, after which the sound halted as abruptly as it had begun and Ephram lay on the bed twitching, soft cries and hitched breath from his open mouth.  
  
“…_momma_,” he gasped. “Momma, please. I want….” That too trailed off into nothing as exhaustion from the ordeal set in and Ephram couldn’t do much more than breathe. He didn’t move or respond as Ruby tried to alleviate his pain as much as he could, and when she moved back, Ephram said hoarsely but steadily, “I ain’t gonna see the end of this week, Ruby Scarlett, we can’t pretend no different no more.” With obvious effort, he turned his head on the pillow and when he opened his eyes, they were Ephram’s blue again; at their greyest and glassiest but not the scaly white that had taken his vision. He looked at Ruby with the unblinking stare of somebody tracing the familiar features of something he wanted desperately to remember, to learn by heart, and then turned his head back.  
  
“Call Freddie home. I need to say goodbye.”

* * *

Freddie’s first horrific thought when he opened their bedroom door was that he was too late; that Ephram had already died. Because he looked it. At first sight, the creature sprawled in the bloody crime scene of their bed - in the bloody crime scene of its wretched existence - bore only a passing resemblance to the man that the fairy loved so desperately; and Freddie felt a howl of anguish push its way up into his mouth, the new strength of his magic vibrating inside him with the kind of wounded fury that would have frightened him if it hadn’t been his own.  
  
But in the split second before he allowed himself to shake apart entirely, he saw Ephram’s now sunken and caved in chest move slightly, heard the faintest painful wheeze of breath, and he realized that the husk in front of him was still his husband. That Ephram was still clinging to life - at least for a few minutes more.  
  
And, Freddie saw belatedly, his eyes were blue again. Agonized, and glassy - but his own. That somehow, in what might be his last few moments, Ephram had fought his way back to them; to say goodbye solely as himself.  
  
Pulling off his jacket, Freddie threw it aside, and moved quickly to the bed, sitting down beside Ephram, and murmuring thickly, “Sweetheart, I’m here; it’s Freddie. You can see me now, yeah?”  
  
The fairy looked down at the rends in his witch’s flesh, bloody and ragged, revealing the cracked and broken bones beneath, and felt his heart clench. Ephram’s body had become even more ravaged by rot and sores in his absence - his pain etched even deeper into the lines of his face; into the taut yellowed gauntness of his skin - and Freddie carefully lifted his hand, holding it gently, silvery fairy dust already spreading from the point of contact.  
  
“Ephram,” he said, “-love, can you speak to me? I need you to focus now. I need you with me, darling.”  
  
Tears slid down Freddie’s cheeks at the vastness of both his husband’s suffering, and the strength it took to bear it; not only now but for all the days it had taken to bring him here. “Because you’re not going to die, sweetheart. Not now.”  
  
“I’m not going to let that happen.”  
  
The fairy took a deep breath, concentrating all of his energy on that one goal, that single belief. “I refuse to be without you, Ephram,” he said, his voice soft but firm as his magic pulsed through his skin, encasing them both as it shimmered through the air. “Can you feel it, love? I need you to reach back for me if you can…”  
  
His eyes felt sticky and unfocused, but Ephram managed to look up at the sound of Freddie’s voice and gave a rattling gasp. Admiring his fairy had always been a pleasurable way to spend his time, but the Freddie who was sitting on the bed was … as if Freddie had been filled with starshine under his skin. Cosmically beautiful, beyond comprehension.  
  
Ephram attempted to answer Freddie, but his tongue was so dry, his throat so ragged, that all he could get out was another wheeze. Frustrated, he gripped Freddie’s hand – and slowly realized what he’d done.

He’d _gripped_ Freddie’s hand. Ephram had stopped being able to use what strength he had left hours ago.  
  
That silver fairy dust, though, that was familiar and beloved and amplified as it was like this, it was closer to transcendent. And it didn’t come a moment too soon; Ephram could feel his body shutting down bit by bit, turning off the lights in each room before vacating entirely. “Faster,” he whispered. “Freddie, faster, bring me back please I’m sinking so _deep_–”  
  
His own magic was a no-go just yet. Ephram couldn’t find even the slightest inkling of it inside him, only Anaxis rumbling around and scraping at his decaying insides. The demon did want to keep Ephram alive, yes, but after the brand on Ephram’s hip that had seared into Freddie’s hand, Anaxis developed a strong aversion to fairy dust. “Hold on to me,” Ephram pleaded, all the terror he was feeling regarding the fate of his soul evident in his weak voice. “Freddie, I love you,_ please_.”  
  
Freddie had never been one to abstain from using his magic. From his earliest id-driven and unconscious efforts of early childhood on, he’d embraced his power fully and completely; employing it at every opportunity for his own gain and amusement, stretching it and bending it to see what it could do and how far it could go. And consequently, he had a repertoire and mastery of glamours that most fairies would find impressive - though few would want, if they’d known the levels of loneliness required to hone those skills.  
  
Healing, however - healing someone else, at least - was something he hadn’t had much experience with at all, prior to coming to Soapberry Springs. And it wasn’t until that night in the hospital when he’d been called upon to repair the damage done to Ruby, that he’d really understood what fairies were capable of at their best.  
  
Or at least, he’d thought he had.  
  
Healing Ruby that night had been painful. Freddie’d had to dredge up every last ounce of magic he’d possessed, and push it to the brink of its capability - and even then, he hadn’t managed to heal her entirely. She’d been left weakened and scarred; and the strain of the effort had been nearly too much for the fairy to bear.  
  
But _this_, he knew, wasn’t _that_. This only held a passing resemblance to anything he’d ever been able to achieve before.  
  
There would be no dragging and scraping this time. Because then, his magic had been pressed into service; but now, it felt almost eager for its chance, surging and thrumming and glittering inside him.  
  
With barely any effort at all, Freddie took control of a current of air, and used it to bring Ephram gently into his arms, heartened by his witch’s grip on his hand, and unwilling to waste another second as he was pleaded with to move faster. “I’ve got you,” he breathed, holding Ephram close, his dust streaming through his skin and bathing his husband in silver. “I know you’re scared, sweetheart, but I promise, I’ve got you; I’m not letting go…”  
  
“…I love you so much, Ephram…”  
  
Pushing steadily harder - very much like pressing his foot down slowly on the accelerator of a car with a very powerful engine - Freddie poured all of his focus into rebuilding what had been ravaged, into restoring what had been lost; conscious, all the while, of what could be given, and what he would have to hold onto.  
  
Conscious of the warm pulsation of his marked hand.  
  
“Keep talking to me, sweetheart,” Freddie murmured, his pupils blown wide inside an almost iridescent blue, “Tell me what’s happening…”  
  
If he’d been in any more of a stable state than a death rattle, Ephram might have thought twice about Freddie’s magic being used to heal him. After all, the last time they tried something like that, something big and involving Anaxis, Freddie had been seared and scarred for his trouble. And considering that without his own magic Ephram had no control over the demon, it was unfathomable just what might happen to Freddie if he performed such intimate magic.  
  
But instead he begged and pleaded, the only sort of half-articulated communication he could make at this point as his desiccated body shook from trying to weep and having no more fluids left, and Freddie took it from there.  
  
The shift in his flesh and blood from twisted and frozen didn’t register with Ephram right away; he’d been dying in agony for days and that was all that his brain could process at the moment. What he focused on instead was the feel of Freddie against him, the sharpened gleam of his fairy’s dust when it served a sterner purpose than glamours and glitters. The scent of him, more delectable than ever and making water spring below Ephram’s tongue (supple and pink again, reconstituted from the tab of leather it had become). Freddie amplified, Freddie the king.  
  
“Hurts,” Ephram gasped, chest rising as his deflated lungs filled again. He gripped Freddie’s hand tighter, though, his voice stubborn for all its weakness. “It’s fine, hurts ‘cause it’s healing. Keep going, honey.” It didn’t occur to Ephram that Freddie might be at danger of depleting himself past the point of no return. He was too fixated on what was happening in his body, the reversal of all the decay and damage. That silver fairy dust even seemed to dissolve the stench of Ephram’s sickness, and as soon as he could he turned in Freddie’s arms to smush his face against his husband’s chest. That silver scent filled Ephram’s head like a cold freeze as it rebuilt sagging and liquefying brain matter and he gave a relieved, gasping sob.  
  
The triumph was short-lived, though, as Ephram turned back so he could look up at Freddie. “I gotta take care of the demon,” he rasped. “Keep on with what you’re doing, Freddie, baby, you’re doing so good, keeping me safe….” Pride and gratitude laced through the love in Ephram’s words, and he even managed a twitch of a smile before he said, “Don’t get worried. You just keep on and I’ll be back a’fore you know it.”  
  
Without giving Freddie any time for questions, Ephram raised an unsteady hand to splay his fingers against his fairy's temple. His blue eyes rolled, one going cancerous white again and the other simply unseeing.  
  
The room around them had shifted without Freddie’s notice, the same way that it had at Iann’s when his friend had implanted the sugarplum seed into him; though this time, Freddie’s desire had conjured a place that his mind couldn’t consciously recognize. It was lush and green - reminiscent of the treehouse where he and Ephram had first pledged themselves to each other at sixteen; yet it wasn’t quite the same. Their bed had become four-postered, with a canopy that reflected the starlight that seemed to burn from inside Freddie’s body; the scent of orange blossom, and honey, and spring rain thick in the air.  
  
If he’d seen it - if he’d had eyes for anything other than Ephram and the task at hand - Freddie would have been hard pressed to understand what it meant. What corner of his mind, or his heart, this place had come from - though it may have tugged at him like a half-remembered dream. Like something he’d once glimpsed out of the corner of his eye, then lost again when he’d turned around.  
  
But despite having forgotten it - this place that they’d created together; the universe they’d willed into being and adored - it hadn’t been lost entirely. Some piece of it had been preserved, and longed for, as Freddie had longed for Ephram; aching for him as his witch had begun to slip away. And Freddie’s magic - only able to be steered now; too much to be contained - had given it back again, however briefly, as it sought to give Ephram back too.  
  
But Freddie didn’t see. He couldn’t.  
  
Because it was _working_.  
  
Ephram was healing. Slowly, and painfully - but he was healing. His grip on Freddie’s hand was getting stronger, along with his voice, and he could move again, pressing his face to Freddie’s chest as the fairy pushed harder.  
  
Freddie could feel it now - the shift; the transfusion, as the magic flowed from his body into Ephram’s. He could feel his sense of invincibility fading, though he was still far stronger than he’d ever been before.  
  
He would need to be careful now, he knew; to stop before he felt any damage being done-  
  
But not yet. Freddie was far from done yet.  
  
At Ephram’s mention of the demon though, he did feel a ripple of fear in the pit of his stomach. He’d been so caught up in the euphoria of his own ability, and of Ephram’s recovery, that he’d lost sight of Anaxis for a moment - a lapse that couldn’t be repeated.  
  
“Sweetheart, I-” he started; his eyes - which had begun to match the mercury of his marked hand - widening in concern. “Back? What do you mean-”  
  
And then Ephram was gone; Anaxis’ skin-crawling white taking his place.  
  
But in spite of his fear, Freddie just gripped his husband tighter, holding him closer, and did what Ephram asked; continuing on with what he’d started. Confident that his witch could do what needed to be done; that he was strong enough to hold his place.  
  
Full of faith in the man he loved.  
  
Even if, for a split second, when Ephram suddenly, blindly, grabbed for Freddie’s marked hand, and slapped it to the site of his brand - sending an electric current through the fairy himself and a shockwave through the room, rippling and bending the glamour - Freddie couldn’t say for certain exactly who it was in control…  
  
The blast of combined magical energies through that single site of contact made Ephram’s eyes roll back, and he thought he could hear hoarse screaming, maybe from himself, maybe from Freddie. It wasn’t painful, not exactly, there was just _so much_ of it. Ephram had been robbed of his magic when Anaxis used it all up to keep him alive, but now it was being not coaxed but _wrenched_ back by Freddie’s silvery dust. From every mote that comprised the physical form of Ephram Pettaline, whoever that was, green magic was pulled and stretched out until it snapped and crashed into silver.  
  
By this point, Ephram had already had his dealings with Anaxis; the demon was quelled long enough to be dealt with but Ephram had no intention of allowing it even the slightest bit of leeway. It had been a shot in the dark to bind the marks on their bodies, but after being healed by his husband’s fairy dust – supercharged and brooking no resistance – Ephram was strong enough again to fight.  
  
Reaching out, Ephram clamped his other arm around Freddie, still holding his fairy’s other hand to his hip. The lunge was so forceful that they tumbled off and away from the bed, and Ephram, eyes wild, half-raised himself against a chair to test his legs. Freddie’s chin, his nose, bumped and dragged along Ephram’s thigh as he stood in a curved, stork-like contortion. “aaaaaaah fuck,” Ephram said, his voice back to its usual sound instead of drained of life. “You’re doing so good, Freddie, so good, I can feel it all sloshing inside me and it ain’t nothin’ I ever–”  
  
He stopped, tugging Freddie up to lean heavily against him, and gave a fierce, glinting grin. “Baby,” Ephram growled, “I’m gonna fuck your brains out once we finish this.”

A noble or heroic statement it was not, but Ephram had never been pristine gentleman material anyways. He was too immersed in Freddie’s magic, the silver swirling into his own green, making what had before been mellow yellowy-warm into a bright, clean-burning acid green that snapped along the lines of the brand mark on his hip. Down to the bone, just like it had been when Faye made the mark but without that agony.  
  
Tilting his head back, Ephram watched Freddie from half-closed eyes, mouth slightly open as his rabbit-fast breathing gradually slowed. He was … well, he was miles, acres better than he had been. He could feel it in the way that certain aches and pains had lifted, the uncluttered feeling in his head, hell – even his skin looked nicer, having lost the sallow and discoloured places he’d gotten over years of physical work.  
  
But it was the scars that made the most impact. All those messy, pale, variously sized and shaped scars (some in excruciatingly intimate areas) had been sanded from his naked body, and Ephram felt some of the shame and horror of his time in prison lift with them. He tipped his head a little, still looking at Freddie as the magic started to ease down into something more tempered, and rumbled with a broad, lazy smile and palpable affection, “…I _do_ believe in fairies, I do, I do.”  
  
As soon as their marks had touched, everything had begun to move faster for Freddie; humming and pulsing, strobing strangely, as the sweetly pungent zing of ozone washed out both the honeyed scent of orange blossom, and the faint lingering aroma of illness. But still he didn’t lose focus. Didn’t let his steady push of dust waver as it snaked up inside Ephram; foraging for the glowing green that crackled through the deepest smallest parts of his DNA, in order to drag it back up where it belonged.  
  
And by the time they hit the floor, as jarring as it was, Freddie knew that everything was going to be alright - because he could already feel the familiar fizz of Ephram’s magic; could feel his own body’s intrinsic awareness of his husband’s powers as they reignited.  
  
Ephram got to his feet, and tugged Freddie up with him; his voice strong and deep again, promising everything that the fairy wanted most in the world at that moment - and Freddie grinned back at him with tears in his eyes; beyond grateful to a higher power that he didn’t believe in, that this man was still here. Still _his_. “You’d fucking better,” he laughed thickly, pressing one hand to Ephram’s cheek, just gazing at him.  
  
And then, feeling something flicker briefly inside him, warning him that he’d now given as much of himself as his body was prepared to be polite about, Freddie began to stanch the flow of fairy dust, finally letting it trickle down to nothing - somehow still feeling as though he could run a marathon, even if he could no longer conquer the world - and just staring at his husband. At his golden, beautiful Ephram. Almost awestruck.  
  
He reached out to run his hands across his witch’s chest, taking it all in. “Look at you…” he murmured, “My god, love…” before raising his eyes again, and smiling at Ephram’s belief in fairies.  
  
He didn’t say a word in answer though. Instead, he just dragged Ephram in for a desperate thankful kiss.  
  
They had a future again, and Freddie didn’t want to waste a single second of it.

* * *

  
  
Ephram was of the same mind.  
  
It took only a couple of days for him to get accustomed to his new lease on life, his body being repaired from scratch by Freddie’s fairy dust. That was astonishing enough; Ephram hadn’t even known he was a witch until something like seven years ago, or he might have healed himself when he had a chance after the major damage of incarceration. And then later, he’d thought that he might as well bear the scars of his experiences, so he lived with them and got used to them, accustomed to their presence on his skin.  
  
But now, standing on their little dock as the sun dipped down and turned everything russet gold, Ephram tugged up his t-shirt and ran a hand over his chest and stomach, marvelling at the fineness of the skin there and the firmness of the long ropy muscles beneath it. The lack of scars. He didn’t feel any pang of regret about that, now that the moment had come. It was good to have them gone, he wanted them gone. He had the four-bar tattoo for the years he’d spent and _that_ reminder, he’d gotten by choice.  
  
The sun was still warm enough to feel good, and Ephram tugged off his shirt and held it bunched in one hand as he swung his arms, the muscles in his back stretching. “Y’know,” he said in a fond tease, “I’m half of the mind that you did a few cosmetic touch-ups while you was bringing me back, dumplin’.”  
  
He turned somewhat to grin at Freddie. His husband hadn’t been especially trying to conceal his approach, but Ephram could feel his silver-tinged magic start to pop in tiny starbursts the closer Freddie got. It would likely dissipate as time went on, but for now, his green magic clung to it.  
  
Freddie smiled and made a dismissive noise of disbelief as he came up behind Ephram and slipped his arms around him; his hands splayed across his husband’s chest and stomach. He stood there for a moment, just soaking up the feeling of warm smooth skin; soaking up the feeling of Ephram - safe, and healthy, and strong again - as he leaned his cheek against his witch’s shoulder-blade.  
  
“That would imply that I ever thought there was anything to improve upon,” the fairy said, “-and we both know that’s not true.”  
  
“In fact,” he went on, “-I’d wager that I can find at least five people who’d swear under oath, Sheriff, that I’m far too besotted with you to even consider such a thing.”  
  
“Though,” Freddie added, his voice softer now as he nuzzled against Ephram gently, fingertips tracing over places once rutted and pebbled with scar-tissue, “-it _is_ lovely to see you so much lighter, sweetheart.” The fairy gave his husband a squeeze, and then let him go again, moving to stand at his side instead; to join him in gazing out over the water as the sun set.  
  
“Ruby’s chased me out of the kitchen,” Freddie went on after a moment, apropos of nothing, a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “Apparently, I hover - so I’ve been sent out here to bother you instead.” He bumped gently, teasingly, against his witch’s bicep. “But I’ll tell you a secret though,” he murmured, looking up to meet Ephram’s eyes, his voice dropping down to a stage whisper, “I was actually planning to come out here and bother you anyway.”  
  
“You look far too handsome stood here in the last of the light for me to be able to resist you.”  
  
Freddie slipped his hand into Ephram’s, threading their fingers together. “I needed to come out and get my fix.”  
  
“Lighter,” Ephram repeated, nodding in pleased agreement when Freddie moved to stand beside him. “That’s a good way to put it, honey, gooder’n anything else. I do, I feel lighter.” He clasped Freddie’s hand gratefully, giving a rumbling chuckle at his husband’s playful flirting. “Now, you know I’m happy to be bothered by you any ol’ time you feel like it,” Ephram said. “I like the way you bother. Nobody does it better’n you, dumplin’.”  
  
He kissed Freddie’s cheekbone, nuzzling there for a moment before pulling away to study his fairy’s face, a highlighting gleam running along the crests of his features. “How’d you do it, anyhow?” Ephram wanted to know. “I mean, that took some righteous fairy dust to reverse the state I got to. And last night I noticed ain’t one of us still got the scars we used to have.” Not Ruby’s myriad of them from her ex-husband and from all the dangerous things she’d run into in Soapberry, not Freddie’s splotch of seared skin and the long strip of betrayal bisecting him.  
  
Running his fingers down Freddie’s stomach to feel the flatness there instead of keloid scar tissue, Ephram continued, “And tell me there ain’t gonna be no repercussions on you, baby. You know I would hate that more than anything.”  
  
Freddie most certainly knew. He and Ephram were of much the same mind on that account, both considering that sort of martyrdom to be self-defeating and meaningless, but Ephram asked anyhow out of pure anxiety. He’d been healed wholly and flawlessly in the physical sense, but it would take a bit longer to put his mind in order. Hence his plan to go easy for a couple of weeks and just putter about the house.  
  
Freddie closed his eyes, sighing happily as Ephram nuzzled against his cheek, only opening them again when his husband pulled back to ask how exactly Freddie had managed to do what he’d done; how he’d managed to wrench Ephram back from the brink of death like he had. “Well, the finer details go a bit over my head,” the fairy said, smiling, “-but in terms of the broad strokes, I suppose you could say that I’m pregnant again.”  
  
Freddie smirked. “Only this time it’s Iann’s, not Martin’s.”  
  
He went on to explain about what had happened to him physically after the removal of the Bvlgari Blue - the true extent of the problem - and how Iann had come to the conclusion that the jewel seed of the sugarplum could take its place. “Only I was sick after he’d implanted it,” Freddie said, “Wretchedly, horribly sick - so I ate the fruit as well, in the hopes that it would help, and… well… coupled with the seed inside me…” he smiled again, knowing that what he was about to say was something of an understatement, and shrugged. “It gave me a bit of a boost.”  
  
“Which I gave to you.”  
  
“But I promise, love,” Freddie went on, catching Ephram’s fingers as they trailed down his stomach, and bringing them to his lips to kiss them, “-healing you didn’t hurt me at all. I knew how much I could give before I had to stop.”  
  
“I’m fine,” the fairy swore. “In fact, I feel better than I ever have.”  
  
“So don’t worry about me, yeah? Let’s just focus on you for a while.” Freddie smiled widely, “-and the fact that I get to have you all to myself for the next few weeks.”  
  
“I want to worry about you,” Ephram protested, stroking one hand along the back of Freddie’s head. “I want you happy and content and healthy and I don’t wanna drop any stitches and then see things unravel. I need to check in with you more.”  
  
Wrapping his arm around Freddie, fingers slatting neatly against his husband’s ribs, Ephram turned them and started moseying back down the pier. “I’m not feeling guilty or nothin’, I just mean shit goes on so fast for us that sometimes I decide to put stuff off for when we can breathe, and then forget to ask at all. Like…” Ephram paused, patting Freddie’s stomach again. “I wanted to ask about this. Or more like how you felt about Cardero because of it, since I know you two are tight. And I mean, now he’s gone cutting into you again so I dunno, babe. Are you okay up here?” Ephram palmed Freddie’s hair back from his forehead, then placed his hand over his fairy’s heart, the unspoken addition to his question obvious.  
  
He patted Freddie’s well-defined chest a few times and leaned in, smiling, “Just indulge me in discussing it for a while and then I promise we can focus on me.” His voice lowered into an intimate rumble, “We can focus on how fuckin’ hot I find it to think of you with that lil sugarplum seed in your belly, because honey, I sure as hell do.”  
  
Freddie let out a soft hum of appreciation as Ephram petted him, his eyes drifting closed for a moment to savour it, and then he opened them again, smiling. “And I love it that you do,” he said, “More than you know, sweetheart.”  
  
“But I promise, I am all of those things, love. I’d tell you if I wasn’t.” The fairy looked up into his husband’s eyes, and held his gaze; his own vivid blue locked on to Appalachian azure. “I won’t unravel,” he said. And then he smiled, leaning up to brush his lips across Ephram’s. “You know I make a habit of staying very firmly knit together.”  
  
Tucking himself into his witch’s side, Freddie let Ephram steer them back towards shore, listening quietly as he was asked about the sugarplum seed, and about Iann - how he felt about it all; if he was alright, deep down where it mattered - his husband’s large hand gentle as it brushed his hair back from his forehead, before settling, warm and strong, over his heart. But they weren’t easy questions to answer, so Freddie didn’t rush to reply, knowing that something flippant or dismissive wouldn’t satisfy Ephram at all; that he would see through Freddie’s usual brand of deflection as clearly as he always did.  
  
Still though, the fairy couldn’t help the little flare of heat and interest in his eyes, and in his belly, when Ephram’s voice dipped lower. “Do you?” he asked huskily, before laughing softly, murmuring, “Sorry. One thing at a time.”  
  
Taking a breath and sobering slightly, Freddie thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Yeah…” he said, “…yeah, I’m alright, love. This time…” he touched his stomach unconsciously, “-this time I knew what was coming. I wanted it.”  
  
“Even if it didn’t work, it was worth trying. Because I hated feeling the way that I did… It was doing my head in.”  
  
Freddie smiled, the expression muted, but genuine. “And we’re alright now, Iann and I. Maybe not quite like we were… but it’ll come, I think.”  
  
“I told him,” Freddie went on after a quiet reflective moment, “-when I was still so angry, so… gutted, by what he’d done, that he’d have to be worth it - my forgiveness. He’d have to make me want him back again; as a friend, as a fixture in my life - and he _has_ done. He’s… I mean, he’s _Iann_. And he loves me.”  
  
“And even when I hated him, I still loved him too, so… you know… there we are, really.” The fairy sighed, giving a bit of a what-can-you-do sort of a shrug. “It’s just a long slow climb back to the summit when you’ve fallen as far as we have.”  
  
“It’s funny though…” he continued, “-if you step back even further; because the fact of the matter is that my body’s damaged now. Martin’s changed me irreparably. And Iann’s likely done the same - operating like he did, and using that witch balm, or whatever it was, to heal me, may have made everything worse; we’ll never know. But at the same time, without all that misery, you wouldn’t be here now, love. I’d have lost you. _We’d_ have lost you.”  
  
Freddie reached up and touched Ephram’s cheek gently, his smile brighter and stronger than before. “So how could I ever regret it, eh? Or wish any of it away?” He shook his head. “I couldn’t. I don’t.”  
  
“This,” he said, taking Ephram’s hand and pressing it to his stomach, “-is for me. I asked for it, wanted it, invited it - and it’s already given me more than I ever could have hoped for.”  
  
He smiled again, shifting closer. “So I really am fine, sweetheart. About Iann… about all of it, really. It’s not hard to separate myself now from the uglier parts of the story to get to the happy ending.”  
  
“Onwards and upwards, yeah?”  
  
“Do you know,” Ephram said with pride lacing his voice, “how different you sound from when we first met? I mean Jesus, honey – now you’re in a place where you can demand that Iann properly amend for what he done, because you know your friendship is worth a shit-ton to him. You know that you’re important to people, just _you_, not what people can get from you.”  
  
Ephram didn’t know if he was sounding preachy at the moment (he could tend to wander into that register, he knew), but he wasn’t able to keep a lid on his admiration for his husband. To have allowed himself to become so vulnerable and trusting and yet through that, to learn how to value himself. And not only for the paid services of his body.  
  
Not that prostitution and whatever other things that Freddie’d traded sex for as a boy were the real problem, just symptoms. For a sunny-hearted person like Freddie to learn young that neither mother nor father felt he was worth anything, for him to lose his nanny to the same idea, it was sadly bound to happen. How else would his husband cope with such neglect and abandonment? That was partially why Ephram never minded Freddie’s puckish bids for attention or his little spoiled tantrums; his darling hadn’t had anywhere near as much love and attention as he’d deserved and Ephram felt the fairy was due.  
  
Of course, there was also the fact that Ephram found Freddie utterly enchanting in every single way. Nothing had extinguished Freddie’s hope to love and be loved (no matter how cynical Freddie claimed he’d been on the idea) and that was an endlessly beautiful thing in Ephram’s eyes.  
  
So when Freddie explained that he didn’t regret any of the horrors he’d endured, that it was suffering he now looked upon gladly for the single fact that it had culminated in his being able to keep Ephram alive, blood started pounding in the witch’s brain. As well as several other places.  
  
“I love you,” Ephram said fiercely, taking Freddie’s face in his hands and kissing him, over and over, his body crowding against Freddie’s. “My fuckin’ amazing lil fairy boy, my baby, Jesus, sweetheart–” He broke off, panting, eyes intent as he stared at Freddie.

“Boathouse,” Ephram rasped. “I need to have you. Right now.”  
  
Freddie felt what might have been a genuine blush heat his face as Ephram’s pride washed over him, and he looked away, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Well,” he murmured, “-if I do, if I _am_ in that place, it’s only because I was given an awful lot of help to get here.”  
  
He looked back up at his husband. “It’s only because you work so hard to show me that I’m welcome…”  
  
And when Ephram reached for him, the ferocity of the way he’d said ‘_I love you_’ was equally present in his kisses, one after another, until Freddie was breathless and starving for more. Each thickly murmured endearment pushing its way through the fairy’s chest to wrap around his heart… until Ephram finally pulled back, his lips wet and red and kiss-swollen, eyes alight with heat and intensity, to command Freddie into the boathouse.  
  
His witch’s voice was ragged, and brooked no argument, and Freddie nodded, his cock already half hard in his trousers, blood rushing in his ears; and he glanced briefly up at the kitchen window, then reached for Ephram’s hand. Gripping him tightly, he pulled him towards the boathouse door and into the relative shadow of the building, groping for the light-switch that he knew wasn’t far away.  
  
Because the sun would be gone soon, Freddie knew, and he didn’t want anything - not the smallest detail of Ephram’s body; or the slightest expression in his husband’s eyes - to be lost to the dark.  
  
“You’re more than just welcome,” Ephram grunted as he unfastened Freddie’s trousers, blinking rapidly in the sudden artificial light but not slowed by it in the slightest. “You’re irreplaceable, you’re a necessity.” His voice hit the sibilants sharply, a hard set to his jaw as he stripped Freddie to the bare, flawless skin.  
  
Ephram didn’t bother undressing himself since all he was wearing was his jeans, but he wanted his husband naked. Gloriously beautiful, wings unfurled, trembling with need for him. “You want this bad, huh?” Ephram murmured, pressing his thumbs into Freddie’s hips as his long fingers wrapped around the crests of them. “I do too, baby. You know I can never keep my hands off you.” He rocked against the generous curve of Freddie’s ass, cock hard behind his half-opened fly. “Every time I have you it’s like I remember what life’s all about.” He wrapped his arms around Freddie, kissing the back of his neck as he ground his hips against his fairy.

“I can’t remember ever wanting anything worse,” Freddie said, his voice already rough with desire, his clothes strewn carelessly across the wooden floor. He dragged in a long slow breath as Ephram’s hands took hold of his hips; as he felt the hungry insistent press of his husband’s cock, and the rasp of the denim that still covered it, against his ass. And he pushed back greedily - the words ‘irreplaceable’ and ‘necessity’ still lingering in his ears; the notion that his love, and his body, were life-affirming to his husband, feeling like a blessing, though Freddie was far from a Believer.  
  
And when Ephram’s lips found the back of his neck, he moaned, deep and low and unashamed.

“Did you know,” Ephram told him between kisses, “when you get fucked real good, the way I do it, your wings give off this scent of….” Ephram moved one hand up Freddie’s chest, pausing to tweak a nipple, up to his throat; without any pressure, only sliding two fingers beneath the witch-magic collar there to feel the pulse fluttering beneath Freddie’s skin. “It’s hard to describe. Like champagne and warm skin and fresh apples. But only after I done you _real good_, honey. Like I’m gonna right now.”  
  
Ephram pressed a kiss to the knob at the top of Freddie’s spine, then one between his wings, and then slipped down to his knees. “Spread your fuckin’ legs,” he commanded harshly, mouth already watering. “You’re gonna do everything I tell you to do, right?”  
  
Ephram ground against him, holding him close, Freddie’s still-folded wings rubbing against his witch’s bare chest and making him tremble; Ephram’s hand creeping up to pinch at his nipple, eliciting a small needy grunt, before finding it’s way to his throat. To his collar. And though it tightened slightly with the inclusion of Ephram’s fingers, the fairy took a deep breath, exhaling slowly - but he didn’t tense. Instead, he just closed his eyes and listened to the sweet honeyed drawl of his husband’s voice as he described the effect that the right kind of fucking had on Freddie’s body.  
  
The kind of fucking that only_ he_ could provide.  
  
The kind that he intended to deliver now.  
  
And Freddie shivered for it, eager and anxious.  
  
Kissed again, just at the base of his neck, and then lower - softly and gently, where a perfect circle of scar tissue had once resided, but only smooth skin existed now - Freddie’s wings extended in arousal just as he heard the sound of Ephram’s knees hitting the floor…  
  
And the instant the order was given, the fairy followed it, spreading his legs wide; his cock hard and red and beginning to leak.  
  
“Everything,” he promised softly, thickly. “Yes, sir…”  
  
“Yeah, that’s good, keep on like that,” Ephram murmured in approval as he palmed the heft of Freddie’s ass, spreading him open and lapping at his hole with obvious, humming desire. “My good boy does everything I tell him to, don’t he? Would never think of telling me no.” He turned his head slightly, biting against the generous flesh as his thumbs massaged Freddie’s saliva-wet hole. “The sweetest baby a man could ever have.”  
  
Freddie bit his lip gently as Ephram’s large hands settled on his ass, pulling him open - loving, as always, the way it felt to be handled by his husband; and at the first hot wet drag of Ephram’s tongue over his hole, the puckered flesh twitching, Freddie let out a shuddering keen, nodding his head that he would do exactly as he was told.  
  
That he would be the best boy he knew how to be in order to make Ephram happy.

Those strong, stained-glass wings fluttered just above Ephram’s head as he dived back in, struck anew by what a lovely creature his Freddie really was. The permanent collar that Ephram had wound with his magic around Freddie’s throat was proof of his capture of a man who’d been rootless, wandering, with nothing much to tie him to anyplace in particular. Sometimes Ephram felt a pang of regret that his brilliant, glittering lover had to give up that lifestyle full of glamorous adventure, surrounded by luxury and excitement; but at the same time, he knew Freddie had consented to be captured, loved, treasured. Ephram would never stop being grateful for that.  
  
Pulling back for a moment, he hooked his thumbs into Freddie’s hole and stretched it open, pink and vulnerable, and spat against the glistening spot.

Sucking in a breath as his witch’s teeth bit into the plump swell of his arse, Freddie widened his stance as Ephram’s thumbs rubbed at his hole, unable to contain his soft breathy little moans of pleasure; and when Ephram buried his face between Freddie’s cheeks again, his tongue lapping steadily, the fairy’s wings began to tremble, quivering, as hot breath and sweet saliva slicked him. His cock drooling, Freddie gave himself a squeeze, pushing back slightly against Ephram’s mouth, wanting to entice that wicked tongue inside, to fuck himself on it - but he forced himself instead to behave, to wait for instruction; until suddenly Ephram stopped, pulling back, and Freddie felt himself being breached by his husband’s thumbs, and stretched wide.  
  
“Daddy…” he murmured, his voice strained, “Daddy, please…” whimpering when he felt the warm splash of spit against his hungry hole, biting his lip again as it began to slide slowly down to drip obscenely from his scrotum.

“You know Daddy’s gonna take care of you, right?” Ephram crooned as he got to his feet, leaning against Freddie and shuddering in arousal when he felt those gem-coloured wings against his chest. He gently scratched the nape of Freddie’s neck before clenching his fist in Freddie’s soft, deliciously scented hair and dragging his head back, pressing their faces close.  
  
“And I’ll never stop loving you. Not even when you’re being naughty and I gotta take control of you again.” With his other hand Ephram landed a hard, resounding slap on Freddie’s ass, growling at the succulent sound of it loud in the enclosed boathouse. And along with it, the sound of Freddie’s breath, the way the blue of his eyes went gemlike pure, the rich ripe plum of his mouth. All these things that Ephram had come to know so intimately that he could conjure them up from memory and yet fell in love with anew from time to time.

...and how close, how _sickeningly_ close they’d come to losing all of it.  
  
But by then, Ephram was standing, asking Freddie if he knew he’d be taken care of, the grazing of his now hypersensitve wings against Ephram’s chest making Freddie’s breath hitch; and he nodded, letting out a small grunt when his head was tugged back, though he turned his face towards Ephram’s instinctively, wanting to still somehow be closer, wanting his husband’s mouth. And when the hard slap to his ass connected, the sound echoing in the quiet of the boathouse, the fairy gasped, his prick straining up towards his belly, the head swollen and glistening with precum.  
  
“I love you so much…” he breathed, “I always want to be yours… your baby… your boy…” The hand not gripping his cock came up to touch the collar around his neck.  
  
“…I can’t- I can’t lose you…”

“Gonna fuck you now, angel.” Ephram kissed the side of Freddie’s beloved face, following it with a few small licks of his tongue. “Ain’t gonna be no easy ride neither. I been too long without you to hold back, honey, I need to be deep up inside my darlin’ boy, so deep I can feel your goddamn pulse against my cock.” Just saying that made Ephram’s prick start to leak in earnest, and with a groan he rocked the head of it against Freddie’s hole a few times before shoving in.  
  
Freddie felt tears spring to his eyes, then; emotions he’d not yet dealt with - the fear he’d felt when Ephram had been dying, the day-to-day agony of slowly being robbed of the man who was his only home in the world - struggling their way to the surface. But only for a moment; because then Ephram was kissing his cheek, and licking at his skin; explaining that he was going to fuck him now, that it would be deep, and hard, and beautiful - and that promise was all there was in the world.  
  
The blunt press of the slick head of Ephram’s prick against his hole made Freddie rock back against him, impatient and wanting; each teasing push only frustrating him further, until he was whining for it. “Fuck me…” he pleaded, “I…”  
  
But the rest died away as Ephram finally pushed roughly in, and Freddie let out a grateful sob, desperate to be fucked and used and plundered.  
  
Because he belonged to Ephram; and all he wanted to say - all he wanted to think - was _yes_.  
  
Hearing the way that Freddie responded to his touches and his words with those needy, sweetly masculine noises that involved Ephram’s name and other variations on that theme never failed to feed his confidence and sense of concentration. Ephram had picked up quickly, once he'd begun, on how to fuck and how to get what he wanted while intuiting what the other person wanted; he was good in bed and never had much to worry about when it came to getting sex. But being the best lay in a radius of five counties meant almost nothing when it came to the man in his arms, this man who’d experienced sex of all sorts from the terrible to the sublime in as many locations. Freddie was the Vatican of sex in Ephram’s estimation, the seat of power and full totality of the practice. A backwoods boy who happened to know how to use his cock wasn’t much in that scheme of things; Ephram couldn’t compare.  
  
So he didn’t. He took ownership of Freddie and wrapped him in love and adoration, and fucked his handsome fairy the way he wanted to – which, it turned out happily, was _exactly_ how Freddie wanted to be fucked.  
  
Ephram rocked and rolled against Freddie, plunging into him fast and shallow as he rubbed his hands along Freddie’s sides. “My good boy, my obedient little baby boy,” he praised his husband, drinking in the feel of Freddie’s tightly quivering wings, the warm scent of sweat rising from his rich, polished skin. “You never forget that I own you, I can tell, even when I’m not here. So obedient.” Ephram stroked and pinched Freddie’s nipples before strapping one arm low on Freddie’s belly to trap the fairy’s dripping prick against him, the other one a band along his chest as the witch forced himself deeper into Freddie’s tight hole.  
  
He gave a long, loud groan as Freddie’s guts stretched open, impossibly silky and heated, to accept Ephram’s plundering dick. “Christ,” Ephram grunted, “So beautiful and so goddamn talented at this, getting bred by your Daddy, so eager for it, huh?” Ephram pushed in slow, right to the base of his hard, twitching cock, and pulled Freddie flush against him to hook his chin over his husband’s shoulder and breathe. “You ain’t never gonna lose me, baby. We came close, too close, but I ain’t never gonna put you through that again.” Ephram kissed the sticky flush along Freddie’s cheekbone, cuddling there with him for a moment to let his promise, his assurance, really sink in.  
  
Obedience had never come naturally to Freddie. Even as a child, when he’d wanted so desperately to be good - to prove to the grown-ups that he could be; that he was worthy of their approval and their affection; when he’d tried so hard to behave - it had always been a struggle. A constant uphill battle during which every additional inch of ground he gained would only be lost again a few moments later; sacrificed to desire, and impulse, and impetuous curiosity.  
  
To obey the rules was just… counter-intuitive, and always had been. And as an adult - or what had had to pass for one early on - Freddie had made the decision to never again attempt to correct his course; to swim against the current. Rules, he’d accepted, were simply made for other people and that was all there was to it. In every instance, every eventuality.  
  
Until Ephram. With Ephram, nothing had ever come easier.  
  
Which was a notion that could still frighten Freddie if it was thought on too long, or faced too directly, as though such focused examination might invite the creeping tendrils of abandonment back out of the dark corners it still lived in to wind its way around this new, and therefore still delicate, sense of trust and vulnerability, in order to choke it out again.  
  
So instead, he just embraced it as unique, and specific, and right.  
  
And it felt like turning his face to the sun.  
  
Ephram’s cock was hot and hard inside him, his witch’s shallow thrusts a combination of perfect prostate strikes and teasing brushes that only made Freddie pant and whine, his prick throbbing in his hand. The pinching of his nipples - his witch rolling the hard little buds between his fingertips - made him moan; and the fairy clenched hard as Ephram pushed deeper, drawing Freddie further into his arms and forcing him to abandon his hold on his cock. Ephram’s forearm now pressing it tight against Freddie’s stomach, the slit oozing a steady supply of sticky arousal and need.  
  
Groaning loud as he took Freddie as far as he could, the fairy able to feel it as his husband buried himself to the root, Ephram rearranged Freddie’s insides as he claimed him - making a place for himself because that was his absolute _right_ \- and Freddie squeezed him again, rocking back even as he hissed at the stretch. He wanted Ephram to know how good it was, how much he lived for it; and when his husband pressed closer, his chin on Freddie’s shoulder, his breath hot and sweet as he promised to never again make Freddie have to face the prospect of life without him, holding him like he was precious - like they, _together_, were something he would never willingly let go of - Freddie felt his even the most persistent and insidious twining threads of his fears forced to withdraw deeper into the shadows.  
  
He was still for a moment, his breathing thick, just letting the certainty of Ephram’s words settle into his skin, and deeper; and then he turned his face to nuzzle into the softness of his witch’s beard, kissing at him as he murmured, “I know you won’t.”  
  
He inhaled slowly, shuddering lightly in Ephram’s arms as his wings dragged against his husband’s sweat-damp chest, the rigid cock still splitting him feeling like a delicious sort of torture, and breathed, “_Daddy_.”  
  
“That’s right, honey, my darlin’ boy, Daddy loves you more’n anything else in the world, you hear?”  
  
Even having incorporated this aspect of their shared sexuality into their lovemaking, slipping seamlessly in and out of their stations, Ephram felt the thrill anew every time Freddie called him _Daddy_. Hearing that coaxing buttered-toast-and-hot-tea voice of his, effortlessly charming at just the perfect pitch for ultimate appeal, hearing it roughened and breathless for something _only_ Ephram could give him, it never failed to make his cock stiffer.  
  
And that was very much to the benefit of them both.  
  
“Spread your wings now like a good boy,” Ephram urged, “and reach on up there, that’s right, grab hold on them storage rails.” Which were just a smidge out of Freddie’s reach, so as soon as his husband’s fingers brushed the steel bar, Ephram lifted him enough for Freddie to properly hang on. He readjusted his grip on Freddie, one arm banded around his fairy’s middle taking most of the weight while he curved the other arm down between Freddie’s legs, grasping his scrotum. “You got the prettiest damn balls I ever seen, you know that?” Ephram said, dotting kisses along Freddie’s shoulders, licking behind one ear and up into Freddie’s damp hair.  
  
Freddie did as he was told without question, extending his wings as far as he could and stretching for the rails that sat just beyond his grasp, up over his head, his heart beating just a little bit faster when Ephram lifted him; that casual display of strength and control enough to make the fairy’s cock ache that much more.  
  
The muscles in his arms taut despite Ephram’s additional support around his waist, Freddie’s feet no longer touched the floor; and each kiss to the back of his neck and his shoulders - coupled with the possessive hand groping between his legs - sent a shiver of preening pleasure radiating up his spine, the slithering heat of Ephram’s tongue and the gusts of his breath making him groan.

Ephram paused for a moment to open his mouth wider against Freddie’s skull, somewhere to the left of his crown, and suck down hard until he was drunk on the deeply rich taste of his darling’s scalp, hidden skin, like sipping from a wildflower untouched in the woods. “Ahhhh, God,” Ephram moaned. “I dunno what I’d do without you, honey, ain’t nobody else I ever found who could make me feel like this.” He rocked his hips for emphasis, hissing at both the tightness of Freddie’s ass and his own engorged cock plundering the soft, succulent hole. “You take it so damn good, so pretty and so handsome both, and them wings – beat them wings for me, boy, go on now – and Christ, I bet I could fuck you until your head’s clean emptied out of anythin’ except your Daddy breeding you, huh?”  
  
Ephram’s prick was still inside him, barely moving but buried deep, as he murmured love and praise into Freddie’s damp hair - the fairy unable, in his dangling position, to do any more than take what he was given at the pace it was provided; wings trembling and cock dripping. And when Ephram finally began to rock his hips again, fucking Freddie slowly as he commanded him to beat his wings, the fairy swore breathlessly as his mouth fell open, his knuckles turning white. “You… _god_… you could fuck me until you’re the only thing in the world that matters,” he rasped, moving his wings like he’d been instructed; beating them not quite fast enough to keep him hovering, but enough to take some of the burden off both his lats and his biceps, and off of Ephram as well.  
  
“Breed me…” he begged roughly, “…knot me like I’m your bitch… fuck me so full of your cum I can taste it, Daddy… _please_…”

The need in Ephram’s blood climbed again, and with Freddie’s toes clear of the floor, be began to slam into his husband in earnest, grunting in effort and appreciation both. With Freddie’s body hanging, Ephram could haul his fairy back against the spear of his cock, making the strokes especially long and deep with a touch of menacing brute force. He made it so Freddie became a fucktoy for Ephram to use, and being able to ply his gorgeous husband’s equally stunning body in whatever way he so chose brought a ravenous growl to Ephram’s lips.  
  
“God dammit,” Ephram grunted savagely, “Jesus fucking _Christ_, Freddie, I can’t get enough of you. I don’t - don't wanna hurt you but I got to fuck you the way I want it, you can do this for Daddy, right? Make me proud, sunshine, show me how much you wanna please me.” Reaching up, Ephram tapped one of Freddie’s hands, ordering him, “Switch your grip. I wanna get you facing me and then I want you to wrap them legs round my hips and then, oh then, honey, I am gonna dig me a hole in your belly so deep you’ll feel my cum for days there, reminding you who your Daddy is and how much he loves you.”  
  
Ephram began to fuck him harder and faster, using him roughly and forcing himself deeper; dragging Freddie’s hips back into each punishing thrust with a building brutality that spoke of absolute ownership, as the fairy moaned, raw and sore already, and still desperate for more.  
  
His breathing laboured, Freddie nodded when he was asked if he could take the full force of Ephram’s need for him, the need to use him and fuck him without constraint; panting that he could, that he wanted to, that he loved Ephram so much. Eager beyond words to make his witch proud, and to see that pride reflected in his eyes. And when he felt the tap to his hand, he took a deep breath, waiting for Ephram to pull out - feeling soft and stretched and empty when he did - and then followed orders, turning himself around on the rails without ever letting his feet hit the floor.  
  
Hanging there, his wings still beating slowly, Freddie pulled himself up a little higher, the tension accentuating the muscles in his arms and chest and stomach, his cock jutting out, red and slick with painful arousal, in front of him; and he waited for Ephram - golden and gorgeous and radiating a beautiful protective menace - to step close enough to get his legs around.  
  
Freddie held Ephram’s eyes and held his breath at the same time, wanting his husband to swell him with spunk. To leave him stinking of it; unmistakably defiled and exalted.  
  
Vulnerable and challenging, all at once.  
  
“Oh, you _want_ me to breed you, huh?” Ephram tipped his head back, eyes dark and slitted, sweat caught along his hairline, in the scrubby hair along his jawline. He was flushed and so dripping from the exertion that his sweat reeked of copper and tree sap, testament to the magic coursing healthily through his body once more. He felt good, _so good_, and Freddie was indescribably beautiful taking it and begging for more in broken moans that stained his lips a deeper cherry pink. Nothing so vulgar as scarlet for Ephram’s darling, no, that wasn’t fairylike. Only pink, pink in all variations, sweet and fresh right down to intimate and blood-flushed.  
  
He ran his hands over Freddie’s taut, rounded muscles as they bunched with exertion, pulling out the moments before he mounted his lover onto his cock again. “You’re a good little boy,” Ephram murmured, digging a thumb under the joint of one wing hard enough to bruise, taking a rigid nipple into his mouth to bite and suck at. “Keeping yourself so pretty for Daddy. Maybe I should take you out to one’a them places where men like me show off their slutty babyboys, huh?” He ran his fingers along the delicate workings of the collar, saying, “…this ain’t just jewelry, after all. But honey, oh–” Cupping his hands at the base of Freddie’s wings, Ephram nudged one hip in closer to let the fairy finally take some strain off and hook his leg on as Ephram ran his hands up the cerulean membranes of those perfumed wings. “_You’re_ the jewel. Wouldn’t even be any contest once I show you off, my perfect lil sweetheart, my Freddie.”  
  
Stepping in flush so Freddie could wrap his legs around fully, Ephram rubbed the slick length of his cock over his lover’s hole. “Only one problem, dumplin,” Ephram said, his voice low and coaxing but shot through with something darker than that. “Here I am telling you what a precious boy you are, how much Daddy loves you, and here you are asking me to breed you when you _already got bred_.”

Arm dropping to hold Freddie’s hips as his other hand clenched in Freddie’s wet hair, Ephram rammed his cock into his husband’s body with a roaring cry that leveled off into harsh growling as he immediately began to thrust. “Daddy knows you already went out like the baby slut you are and got some other man to do it, to plunge inside you and put his seed - that sugarplum seed - in your belly.”  
  
Saying it aloud made Ephram’s blood pool in his groin and cock so strongly that he felt his prick stiffen and thicken even more inside Freddie’s soft and beaten hole. The heat in his body, the way Freddie was making those little sounds and trying to clench down on each thrust even though he was taking such a rough fuck, it made Ephram want to go further, deeper with it. “Couldn’t help yourself, huh?” he snarled, his pace punishing and cruel what with Freddie’s body being completely at his mercy, trapped in mid-air with nothing but Ephram holding him up. “Why don’t I just put you in a goddamn breeding stall and set you up where anybody could get hold of you, is that what you want, is that how you thank Daddy for what he gives you? You wanna get turned out and fucked till your mouth and your ass are drooling cum from dozens of men?”  
  
Some tiny cognizant part of Ephram’s brain was shocked by all this, unaware until now that he could even get this far with his Freddie. Not in how roughly he was treating the fairy, sure as hell not in playing Daddy and threatening Freddie with forced prostitution. Most of all, not how much he was _getting off_ on it, his desire only growing wilder and more violent with every thrust, every snarl. He’d told Freddie about this ugly side to his sexual makeup before, but now that they were here in the moment, Ephram was starting to doubt his ability to stop. Every expression, every twist and response and sound that Freddie made just spurred him on harder, intoxicating Ephram completely.  
  
Freddie wouldn’t pretend that it didn’t hurt - both the brutality of the fuck as Ephram drove into him mercilessly, and the gasping emotional slap of the sudden change in tone; Ephram’s usual murmured loving praise cast aside in favour of something much crueler.  
  
But at the same time, he also wouldn’t pretend to be stunned by it.  
  
Freddie knew the kinds of things that his husband fantasized about where he was concerned. He knew that they were dark, and ugly, and violent. And he knew that Ephram was ashamed of them - but also that they burned inside his witch in a way that few other things could.  
  
He knew these things because Ephram had told him so. And more importantly, Ephram had done his best to tell him _why_.  
  
It was the why that the fairy held fast to; the why that he understood.  
  
_‘I love you so much, Freddie, like I was born needing to find you, and this is what it means, I guess. I want every fucking thing you got, Freddie, I wanna see you in every situation so I can know it all. All of you. Every piece of you … Even your pain.’_  
  
It was the _why_ that still had the fairy clenching hard around his husband’s cock, even as both kinds of pain contorted his features.  
  
He wasn’t afraid of Ephram - not now, and not ever. Freddie loved him completely - all sides, all aspects, for better or worse. And even at his worst - at his darkest, when his control seemed so tenuous - Freddie trusted him. With his heart, and with his body; with everything he had.  
  
Ephram needed this, and Freddie would give it to him. Not because he had to - he was far from helpless - but because Freddie had faith that Ephram would know when to stop.  
  
Ephram loved him, and when this was over - when his husband had taken this as far as he could - it was the love that they shared, and not the violence, that would remain. Everything else was built on that.  
  
Freddie belonged to Ephram - but Ephram belonged to him too.  
  
“I’m sorry, Daddy…” Freddie panted, whimpering as Ephram’s pounding thrusts savaged his tender hole; biting hard at his lower lip as his husband berated and threatened him. “I’ll… I’ll do anything you want me to… anything to make you happy…”  
  
Tears leaked from the corners of the fairy’s eyes unbidden as he tightened his grip on the bars over his head, his legs still clamped around Ephram’s hips as he was violently fucked. “…you’re what matters…” he gasped in a ruined sounding voice; thick and strained.  
  
“…I’m sorry…”  
  
The first apology was satisfying, melting across Ephram’s tongue like a bit of Freddie’s wing membrane as he churned his cock deep into Freddie’s unresisting body, hanging like so much meat to be devoured. “That’s better, that’s more like it, angel. That’s what Daddy likes to hear, that you know your place like a good boy,”  
  
But the second one – it cut through the sex-soaked sponge of Ephram’s brain, a faint note there of something that made his blood chill. It sounded like when fawns would get separated from their momma doe up in the foothills, and some long-toothed predator with a taste for blood got hold of them.  
  
“_ah_. c’mere.” Ephram moved his hand up Freddie’s arms, encouraging him to let go of the support bar one hand at a time. “Oh, honey, my sweet baby boy. I can’t believe how much you took for Daddy, how good you are.” Staggering slightly, Ephram managed to get Freddie down against the nearest table and climbed smoothly on top of him, never breaking contact. He kissed Freddie deeply, thumbing away the trails of wetness from that lovely face in wonder. “Lookit you,” Ephram murmured softly, nosing and kissing and tangling. “Lookit what you let me _do_ to you. I couldn’t have asked for nobody better, you know that?”  
  
Ephram only then started to rock against Freddie, his movements more fluid and measured as Freddie’s insides, silky-hot and delicate, clutched against Ephram’s dick like tissue paper. For as rough as he’d been before, now Ephram was taking his time with his pretty Freddie, drinking in all of his emotions and responses. Trying to ease him back into pleasure after having used him for pain. “Honey,” Ephram murmured, ducking to lick and kiss Freddie’s nipples, “baby, my sweet Freddie, I know I hurt you but Daddy’s gonna make it all okay now, huh? I love you, I’ll never stop loving you.”  
  
It had to still be hurting Freddie everytime Ephram fucked into him, but the witch tried to temper the thrusts to something more gliding and easy. “Just give in, sweetheart,” he urged Freddie. “Let everything relax. I know Daddy’s got a big load and it’s hard to take, but you’re my good brave boy and I know you’d never let me down.”  
  
With that, Ephram’s back curved and he made a long, impassioned thrust into his fairy as his cock spilled its load, dumping neatly into recess of Freddie’s body. “Suck it up, suck it up,” Ephram urged, jerking slightly as he kept shooting spurts of cum. “I wanna see you take it all in, my darlin’ Freddie, I wanna be soaked into you. And I wanna see you shoot off hard as you can, so hard you stain your own throat.”  
  
Relief and gratitude washed over Freddie when he was given absolution - restored to the position of angel, and praised for knowing his place. His head rested against his bicep as he hung there, soft whimpering grunts forced out of his panting mouth as Ephram continued to fuck him, deep and driving - knowing that he should answer, that a good boy would say thank-you to his Daddy - just not quite able to manage it. Too raw now, inside and out, to do much more than just hold on and take what he was given.  
  
But then Ephram’s voice softened, and he was encouraging Freddie to let go of the bars…  
  
And as soon as the fairy realized what he was expected to do, he didn’t waste any time. He dropped heavily, impaling himself even further on Ephram’s cock with a ragged groan, throwing his own aching arms around his husband’s neck; barely conscious of what was happening as Ephram carried him over to the nearest table, still inside him, and laid him out.  
  
But once he was on his back, Ephram on top of him, pressing in to plunder Freddie’s mouth deeply and gently - soft now, where he’s been so harsh only a few minutes before - Freddie kissed back, clutching at his witch and gathering him closer. The two of them enmeshed and entwined as Ephram wiped away the tears the fairy hadn’t been able to contain. Nuzzling and caressing, even when Ephram finally started to roll his hips again, making Freddie whine against the pain.  
  
But the motions were gentler now; smoother and softer - considerate of Freddie’s body again, of his pleasure - and just that shift, that slight slowing of Ephram’s pace, was enough to allow Freddie’s biology to begin to make things easier.  
  
Only a little; just to tip the balance back into pleasure’s favour… but enough.  
  
And when Ephram ducked his head to lick and kiss at Freddie’s nipples, the fairy let out a gasping moan, arching his back; his cock straining again, eager to be touched, as Ephram’s prick nudged the right place inside him, the thick muscles of his thighs trembling. Breathing, “…I love you too…” and forcing his legs back up around Ephram’s waist.  
  
Freddie winced again, still sore, even as his pleasure was mounting, but when he was told to relax, Ephram’s deep molasses voice urging him to just give in and take it all, because he could, because he was his Daddy’s good boy, the fairy nodded, and pushed back - just in time to meet his husband’s last deep thrust.  
  
He could feel the hot thick spill of spunk inside him - or he imagined he could - as Ephram spent himself; filling him up, fucking it into him - and Freddie clenched as hard as he could manage, wanting to keep it all. Greedy for it.  
  
He wanted to taste it in the back of his throat, to stink of sex and his Daddy’s sweat…  
  
But when he came, with a rough-sounding sob, on Ephram’s command, painting his neck and collar with his own ropes of warm slightly silvery cum, all Freddie could do was stare up at his witch, his eyes wet, his lips pink and swollen-

-and hope that he’d done a good job.


End file.
